Scary Movie 4

Infobox Film
name = Scary Movie 4


caption = Theatrical release poster
director = David Zucker
producer = Robert K. Weiss
writer = Jim Abrahams
Pat Proft
Craig Mazin
starring = Anna Faris
Regina Hall Craig Bierko
Carmen Electra
music =
cinematography =
editing =
distributor = United States
Dimension Films
The Weinstein Company
International
Miramax Films
Buena Vista Distribution
released = UK April 13, 2006
USA April 14, 2006
runtime = 83 min.
89 min. (unrated)
country = United States
awards =
language = English
budget = $45 million
gross = $178,262,620
preceded_by = "Scary Movie 3" (2003)
followed_by =
amg_id = 1:286930
imdb_id = 0362120

"Scary Movie 4" is the fourth film of the "Scary Movie" franchise and is directed by David Zucker, written by Jim Abrahams, Craig Mazin and Pat Proft, and produced by Craig Mazin and Robert K. Weiss. It is distributed by The Weinstein Company via its Dimension Films unit in the U.S., and internationally by Buena Vista Distribution (Miramax). It was released on April 14, 2006.

Short synopsis

Anna Faris and Regina Hall are back as the lovable, dim-witted Cindy Campbell and her self-serving, sex-crazed pal Brenda Meeks respectively. They are joined this time around by Craig Bierko as the cute, but utterly clueless, Tom Ryan. Together, they battle to save the world from a ruthless alien invasion. Cindy moves in next to Tom because she's taking care of an old lady. She later finds out the house is haunted by a little boy and goes on a quest to find out who killed him and why. Also, Alien "triPods" are invading the world and Cindy has to uncover the identity of the young boy's murderer in order to stop them.

Parodies

The movies/shows/objects officially spoofed:
* "Saw" - The opening scene with Shaquille O'Neal and Phil McGraw and the villain Jigsaw on the TV. It was also in a bathroom. Adam and Lawrence were in the same setting and in the same trap in "Saw".
* "Saw II" - The Venus Headtraps worn by Cindy and Brenda, and the "Key behind your eye" part of the trap.
* "The Village" - The old-world country scene.
* "The Grudge" - Main Parody.
* "War of the Worlds" - Main Parody.
* "Million Dollar Baby" - Cindy's boxing match with a female Mike Tyson.
* "Brokeback Mountain" - The scene with the two men in the tent
* "Hustle & Flow" - Cindy's first marriage (very short).
* "" - In the beginning, the cat clutches Tom's penis, similar to the cat that clutched T.J.'s
* "The Oprah Winfrey Show" - At the end of the film, it mocks the Tom Cruise "jumping on couch" incident.
* "Shaun of the Dead" - The beating up the zombies scene.
* "Final Destination" - When James Earl Jones gets hit by a bus was Terry's death.

Plot

Shaquille O'Neal and Dr. Phil wake up chained in a bathroom (spoofing "Saw"). Shaq has to make a free throw with a huge rock in order to get the saw down to cut off their legs (spoofing Shaq's famous difficulties at the free-throw line). Shaq and Dr. Phil have only two minutes to free themselves of their leg braces before dying from the room's airborne nerve gas. Finally, Shaq makes the basket and lowers the saws down. Dr. Phil ends up sawing off the wrong foot, thereby remaining chained and the two are presumed to be dead.

Tom Logan (Charlie Sheen), spoofing Bill Pullman's character from "The Grudge", wakes up. There are three girls (from "The Girls Next Door" on E!) in his bed who later have a pillow fight. He tries to kill himself by taking too many sleeping pills but the pills turn out to be Viagra, resulting in him tumbling over a balustrade, landing on his erect penis, and dying. Cindy Campbell goes to get a new job (parodying Sarah Michelle Gellar's character in "The Grudge"). She's been asked to be a caretaker for the creepy "Grudge House." She receives a tour inside, Cindy expects nothing and she gets a 'feeling of evil' as the guide tries to hide the overflowing hair on the ceiling, in drawers and baskets and on his head; and The Grudge Boy in the bathtub by pushing him down with a plunger, and then walks out naked and Cindy smiles and says "I'll take it".

Meanwhile, Cindy's neighbour Tom Ryan (Craig Bierko), spoofing Tom Cruise's character in "War of the Worlds", gets fired from his job as a crane operator at the docks. At a bar afterwards he runs into Mahalik (Anthony Anderson) and CJ (Kevin Hart) where it is revealed, in a parody of "Brokeback Mountain", that the two have started a homosexual relationship. Tom gets home, where his ex-wife (Molly Shannon) has just arrived with his children, Robbie and Rachel, who both resent him.

Cindy's job is to look after the incapacitated Mrs. Norris (Cloris Leachman), however she is incompetent at it, to the point of accidentally sponge bathing Mrs. Norris with her own urine. Throughout the night Cindy notices strange events going on in the house, culminating in her finding a ghostly boy in the attic.

The next morning she confides in Tom about the events of the previous night, which leads to a conversation about their past relationships. Cindy has a flashback to her first marriage, showing a big African-American man cussing her out, and then another to her second marriage, to the death of her husband George (Simon Rex) where, in a parody of "Million Dollar Baby", George trips and breaks his neck (as do numerous members of the audience) during a boxing match between Cindy and Tiffany Stone, a female version of Mike Tyson also showing a pile of bitten-off ears. As they share a kiss, the sky suddenly goes stormy and everything electrical stops working (In the real movie cars stopped working, but in this movie cars, bicycles, skateboards and a man runs out of a toilet, trousers down and holding a newspaper ("My "bowels" have stopped moving!"). Tom goes to investigate, and discovers the world has come under attack by gigantic triPods (giant iPods) that play 80s music... and then switches to the "Destroy Humanity" playlist, transforming the iPods into actual Tripods, which vaporize the humans they zap (it was also showed three people which seemed to be rappers, get vaporized and dropping a huge pile of bling-blings).

Cindy runs back into her house and finds the ghost boy again. They began talking in "Japanese" (actually Japanese brand names and "buzz words" such as Sony, Mitsubishi, and Fujitsu), in what may be a parody of the scene between Beatrix Kiddo and Pai Mei in Kill Bill in which Pai Mei says "Your Japanese is lousy. It dishonors my ears.", which the ghost boy says to Cindy. She is told by the ghost boy that she can find the answer to the alien attack when she finds his father. He gives her directions to his location (It's like the way Arquette from Stigmata writes on the wall) but Cindy couldn't read them so they transformed into a Yahoo map so that Cindy could read it. Tom splits up with Cindy and flees with his kids.

The scene then changes to the President of the United States being informed that aliens are attacking. President Baxter Harris (Leslie Nielsen) is sitting in Edna R. Penhall Elementary School, listening to a book being read (something about a duck); when his aide Jamison (Alonzo Bodden) comes, he sits motionless, wanting to hear the rest of the story. This mirrors George W. Bush's being read a children's story for seven minutes, after being told about the September 11 attacks. When Jamison explains that he read the book before and the duck dies, Baxter spews the milk he drank on the kids. Upon a mentioning that their parents might be dead, the kids also spew milk on Baxter. After mentionings that Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, and Tooth Fairy aren't real, Baxter tries to go on to another story called Rumpelforeskin. When Jamison takes him out of the classroom, Baxter tells Jamison to remind him to sign the abortion bill.

Cindy runs into Brenda Meeks (Regina Hall whose character apparently faked her death in "Scary Movie 3") at a downed plane and together they manage to find the last working car and follow the directions of the ghost boy. Upon taking a car from someone, Cindy and Brenda drive past Mahalik and CJ who've mistakened some slow-moving people as zombies.

Tom and the children continue to travel as some people threaten him. Tom uses his gun to get their attention. Afterwards, the travel continues.

Back at the White House, President Baxter Harris is being briefed about the duck by Jamison. One of Baxter's Secret Service Men comes in with an eye-witness to the alien attack. She states that the triPods are indestructible and describes the weapon used by the triPods as a laser that "causes people's clothes to fly off people."

Cindy and Brenda come across a "village" that is a hundred years behind modern times. After unsuccessfully trying to steal clothes off some villagers, they take some from a laundry basket and attempt to fit in. Unfortunately, they are captured by the guards and are taken into a court to decide their fate. Henry Hale (Bill Pullman), the head of the village, rules that Cindy and Brenda may stay in the village, but they may never leave.

At an emergency session of the UN, and a round of horribly inappropriate jokes, President Harris reveals a weapon made to combat the aliens. Scientists have taken the lasers used by the triPods, which kill the people but leave their clothes behind, and modified it to do the opposite to the aliens. The members of the UN get an unexpected, and quite unwelcome, demonstration when President Harris accidentally hits the switch and is soon standing in front of all the delegates, completely unaware that he is totally naked. It’s not long before the entire UN is stark naked. Baxter's aide Harper (Bryan Callen) tells Baxter that he's naked too where Baxter thinks that he was wearing a wrinkly leather coat. Harper escorts the President out of the UN.

Tom and his children run into a battle between the Army and triPods. Robbie decides to join the fight, excited by the graphic violence. While Tom tries to dissuade him, Michael Jackson (who has gathered a bunch of children) tries to persuade Rachel to come with him, but Tom manages to stop her in time. Unfortunately, Robbie gets away. Jackson is zapped by the triPod's heat ray; the first blast causes him to revert to his "Bad" appearance, the second into his "Thriller" appearance, and the third reveals his true form - a balding middle-aged black man - before a fourth blast destroys him totally, leaving only his nose. Tom and his daughter flee into house protected by Oliver (Michael Madsen parodying Tim Robbins' character from "War of the Worlds") who is telling them that they should make their own tripods ("Ours will have FOUR legs"). Soon, Tom and Rachel are captured by a triPod.

That night, the village is attacked by Those We Don't Speak Of, however it is discovered that they are Old Lady Henderson and Pigface Joe in costumes. Next door, Henry is stabbed by the mentally challenged Ezekiel (Chris Elliott). Henry reveals to Cindy and Brenda that he is the father of the ghost boy, who was killed at Cindy's boxing match because everyone snapped their necks and Don King crushed him. He tells Cindy that only she has the power to defeat the triPods. When Ezekiel reappears and stabs him again, the other villagers arrive. As Brenda asks who let Ezekiel out of jail, one of the villagers quotes "His brother, the Sheriff" (Brad Sihvon) as the sheriff appears next to Ezekiel. At that point, Cindy and Brenda get captured by one of the invading triPods.

The characters wake up in the bathroom from "Saw". Cindy and Brenda are wearing the "Venus Fly Trap" from "Saw II" and Tom is wearing a device that would shoot a large dildo into his anus. Jigsaw appears on a monitor on the wall, and tells them they have 60 seconds to get the Venus Fly Traps off before they close. Eventually, Cindy figures out (after much prompting) that she has to get the key from behind her eye, which she does with ease, because the key was behind a glass eye she got due to a "bad bar fight in '96". Cindy frees them from their traps, and Tom's kids come down from the ceiling, about to be sliced into bits unless he holds onto a rope which happens to be between an iron maiden. He grabs onto the rope which leaves him open to another torture device called the Nut Cracker, which gives him various punishments such as kicking his crotch, and giving him a purple nurple and a wet willy. Moments before their deaths, Cindy finds photos in the toilet of Jigsaw, a woman, and the ghost boy, and realizes that Jigsaw was the ghost boy's real father, and the entire invasion was revenge for his son's death. He then says "Anyone can hold a grudge, but it takes real courage to forgive," and it is at this time that Jigsaw comes into the spotlight. He then tells them that the invasion is over and allows them to leave. He apologizes for the invasion and killing millions of people, and then Brenda (who went through a rotating wall into the control room earlier) and Jigsaw's brother, Zoltar, emerge from the other room, where they have just had sex. Thus, the triPods are deactivated. Jigsaw asks Zoltar if he caught anything, Zoltar replies that Brenda (untruthfully) told him she was a virgin and Jigsaw finishes by saying "We are so fucked."

Nine months later, Brenda gives birth to a baby that looks just like Jigsaw and Zoltar. CJ and Mahalik resume their homosexual relationship. President Baxter Harris is seen sleeping with a duck. After that, James Earl Jones gets hit by a bus (which was Terry's death from Final Destination) while delivering Morgan Freeman's closing lines from "War of the Worlds".

A five minute epilogue spoofs the Tom Cruise couch incident by showing an "Oprah Winfrey Show" episode with Tom Ryan jumping on a couch with Oprah (played by Debra Wilson). Tom runs around the studio, does backflips (performed by David Leighton), swings across the studio, and chews/rips apart one of the couch cushions. Cindy Campbell walks in and gets thrown by Tom off the stage. Tom then breaks Oprah's hands and wrists, smashes a chair over her head, runs towards the camera lens, and the screen goes black.

Box office

In its opening weekend, the film grossed a total of $40.2 million, [ [http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=2050&p=.htm 'Scary Movie 4' Cracks Easter Record ] ] the third best opening weekend of the "Scary Movie" franchise. It has the best Easter weekend opening weekend ever, beating "Panic Room" which made $30.1 million in its opening weekend and also the second best April opening, only $2 million behind "Anger Management"'s record.

As of October 18, 2006, the film has grossed a total of $90,710,620 at the United States box office and $178,262,620 worldwide.

Critical reception

The film received generally mixed reviews from critics. As of August 2008, the film holds a 38% aprroval rating on rottentomatoes.com. Though for the most part it was received less favourably than the first three "Scary Movies", with only the second one getting worse reviews, "The New York Times"' review was relatively positive: "Organized on the principle of parody, not plot..., it's an exercise in lowbrow postmodernism, a movie-movie contraption more nuts than Charlie Kaufman's gnarliest fever dream."cite news| url=http://movies.nytimes.com/2006/04/14/movies/14scar.html |title=Parody Without Plot in 'Scary Movie 4' |last=Lee |first=Nathan |work=New York Times |date=2006-04-14 |accessdate=2008-02-02]

Ratings

* In the USA, the official MPAA rating is PG-13 for crude and sexual humour throughout, some comic violence, and language.
* In the UK, the official BBFC rating is 15 for strong language and moderate sex references.

Cast

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Shooting locations

This is the third "Scary Movie" filmed in Vancouver. The others were "1" and "3".

Trivia

* The rules Brenda is holding up, in the poster, says the following::I: Let the scary movies be seen, we will mock them.:II: Let the weepy dramas be seen, we will give them something to cry about.:III: Let the romantic comedies beware, for we are coming.
* Despite King Kong being in the poster, the film is not parodied in "Scary Movie 4". Craig Mazin stated: "I don't know why King Kong is on the poster. We do not spoof "King Kong" in the movie." However, it had been spoofed in "Date Movie".
* Someone is crushed by a car at the end of the movie, like the previous movies. This is the narrator James Earl Jones.
* Most of the special effects in the film were in the parody of "War of the Worlds", which were relatively well done and similar to those in "War of the Worlds".
* This is the first in the "Scary Movie" franchise to be shot in high-definition video, specifically with the Panavision Genesis camera.
* This is the first film in the "Scary Movie" franchise to feature Regina Hall on the film's poster.
* Bill Pullman and Anna Faris both appeared in films parodied by "Scary Movie 4": Faris can be seen in "Brokeback Mountain" and Pullman appeared in "The Grudge", partly spoofing the same character he played in that movie.
* Carmen Electra and Chris Elliott are the only supporting cast members to appear in one "Scary Movie" film by Keenan Ivory Wayans and one by David Zucker. Electra played Drew in "Scary Movie" and Elliott played Hanson in "Scary Movie 2". They are also the only actors to appear in the series more than once playing different characters.
* Anna Faris and Regina Hall are the only two people that have appeared in all of the "Scary Movie" films.
*The poster of the movie says it is the final chapter of the trilogy, although Scary Movie 5 has been announced. This could be a reference to the tagline of the first film.
* "Crooked Letter" featured on the soundtrack was written by Frank Fitzpatrick, Roy Brown, Jr. & James Federico, performed by Young Huss, and produced by Frank Fitzpatrick.
* Confusingly, Charlie Sheen parodies Bill Pullman in "The Grudge". Later Bill Pullman himself appears in the film playing a different character who is a parody of William Hurt in "The Village (film)"
* In Quentin Tarantinos Deathproof the protagonist runs through a roadside advertisement announcing Scary Movie 4 and Wolf Creek.

References

External links

* [http://www.scarymovie.com/ Official Website]
* [http://www.scarymovie4-now.com/ "Nearly" Official Website with an Exclusive Interview]
* [http://movies.go.com/movies/movie?name=scarymovie4_2004 "Movies.com"]
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* [http://www.shaolintiger.com/2006/06/22/movie-review-scary-movie-4-ridiculous/ Movie Review - Scary Movie 4]
* [http://movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=3413&In=WikE Detailed Comparison between PG-13 and Unrated]

Box Office Leaders USA
before =
date = April 16
year = 2006
after = Silent Hill